Test all possible cases

[andreareginato]

Write your thoughts about the "Test all possible cases" best practice.

[myronmarston]

I agree with covering all edge cases. However, I think there's a lot of confusion around pure RSpec vs. RSpec in a rails context, and your example is clearly in a rails context (without being labeled as such). The betterspecs site as a whole seems geared toward general rspec practices but mixes rails stuff throughout. If I may make a suggestion: I think it'd be good for all the general rspec practices to use pure ruby/non-rails code, and than have a section for rails-specific stuff.

[ic]

Testing all possible cases is also an ideal goal. It is quite hard and sometimes impossible for a given amount of time available (e.g. bound by a release deadline). Time consuming to try to test non-deterministic code, like with thread interleaving.

So how about adding a tip at the end of the section to say that we may have to compromise between "all" and "as much as possible".

+1 to myronmarston. Plain Ruby would better serve the noble goal of Better Specs. RoR examples require more context knowledge.

[juanibiapina]

Why not test only the important scenarios? One can always add extra tests for edge cases if they ever become a problem (of course, you define when they become a problem for your context).

By testing all edge cases you'll likely spend a lot of time trying to predict situations that might never happen in practice. Or situations no one cares.

I like to think about it like this: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/153234/how-deep-are-your-unit-tests/153565#153565

[rebekah]

Is " it 'responds with 404' " new syntax, or was it just a shorthand for something more standard like it {should respond_with...}? Oh and my vote is that I agree with the author, it is good to test for edge cases at least to the extent shown in this example.

[pepe]

+1 @myronmarston I would like also se more general principles and practices in Ruby

[enricostano]

@rebekah it's just a "pending implementation" https://www.relishapp.com/rspec/rspec-core/v/2-3/docs/pending/pending-examples#pending-implementation

[rebekah]

ah thanks :)

[Bodacious]

The first good example is not a single expectation test

[andreareginato]

I agree with @myronmarston. Anyone willing to make a no-rails example and make pull a request?
Thanks everyone.